Spinoff: Body Plan Emergence

Okay, let me clarify myself; by using, “lucky appropriate mutations,” I am not saying or implying “the end point was somehow the goal of the process.” What I’m saying is that there is no process, goal or end point! It’s all impossible scientifically speaking! It’s a daydream based on wild assumptions. No animal could possibly make it through thousands mutations without destroying itself. As is well known, the vast majority of mutations kill the host animal. And to think that all of the various animals developed males and females, while avoiding the death that mutations (at least 99%), bring, is something only a biased person could believe.

Have you ever heard of the term ‘neutral drift’?

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Whenever “neutral” is used in this subject, I’ve understood it to mean, “neither beneficial nor harmful,” meaning it doesn’t evolve at all, which is what I’ve been saying is impossible to happen.

No, it means change does occur, just not enough in itself to cause functional change. Later, combined with additional, cumulative change, there is enough to cause functional change. Neutral does not mean no change.

[Biologists more conversant with the subject (meaning any biologist :slightly_smiling_face:) may want to make non-neutral changes to my wording above.]

Everything I’ve read on the subject, says “neutral” means, “no change whatsoever.” So, give me an example of this “change…not enough in itself to cause functional change.” I’ve never seen anyone produce the slightest proof that this has ever happened. Animals can only reproduce animals like themselves. There is a genetic barrier that prevents it to be otherwise, which is why there are no known transitional forms here now or in the fossil record.

And here is the thread if you’d like to have discussion there!

In one sense, every fossil and every currently living entity is a “transitional form”. Evolution is about populations. Not individuals. Populations.

You are yourself a “transitional form”. I am a “transitional form”. The next animal you see is a “transitional form”. “Transitional forms” are all around you!

Within most (all?) species, there is diversity. No two plants are identical. No two cats are identical. No two humans are identical. (We leave aside modern, man-made, non-natural cloning techniques.) Evolution happens on the population level, not the individual level. All the breeding individuals across the population take part, with varying success, in transitioning to future generations. That varying success causes some population traits to be strengthened, other traits to die out as generation passes to generation. One generation of the population is “transitional” to the next. There is a subtle but cumulative drift in successful and failed traits across those multiple generations of multiple individuals.

Mike, you seem to think you are arguing against evolution. No, you’re not.

You think you reject “evolution”. Well, you’re rejecting something, but whatever that is, it isn’t evolution. You may be surprised to know that almost all of us here share that with you: we also reject the fairy-tale version of “evolution” that you want to argue against. We also, like you, reject the thing that you mistakenly label as “evolution”.

To continue this conversation, could I suggest that you argue against real evolution, not the fanciful, invented, fairy-tale fake-evolution that you seem to imagine it to be? Might you go and find out what real evolution (not the thing you mistakenly imagine it to be) actually is?

I hope that helps you in your search for understanding.

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Even hardcore evolutionists do not consider every animal as “transitional.” That’s why Darwin wondered where they all were. Cats ancestors are all cats and as everyone knows, all of their offspring are cats. When two cats look different, it doesn’t mean they’re “transitional” forms. In science there’re what are called “terminal” forms. Every scientist, that spoke on the subject I’ve read, knows this. That’s why honey bees are still honey bees after 120 million years. They go back to the time of dinosaurs, without turning into some other kind of animal in all this time. They are “terminal,” not “transitional.”

Interesting that you should mention honeybees; the diverse species in the family provide an excellent example of evolution in action.

African killer bees did not exist 120 million years ago. They evolved recently in response to the appearance of African predators such as the honey badger.

Yemenese honey bees have adapted the ability to “air condition” their hives.

Under pressure from murder hornets, Japanese honey bees have adapted the “hot defensive bee ball” strategy.

These honey bee species and behaviors did not exist 120 million years ago.

Source: https://www.pnas.org/content/111/7/2614.full

Peace,
Chris

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Oh dear. Let me repeat what I mentioned earlier: “Could I suggest that you argue against real evolution, not the fanciful, invented, fairy-tale fake-evolution that you seem to imagine it to be? Might you go and find out what real evolution (not the thing you mistakenly imagine it to be) actually is?”

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Mosquitos have been around for only 79 Million years, but that didn’t stop populations of Culex pipiens f. molestus adapting everything from their foraging and mating behaviour so as to allow them to survive and reproduce entirely within the London Underground network.

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